


If all the Shadows Disappeared

by plumtrees



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blindness, Car Accidents, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Living Together, M/M, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumtrees/pseuds/plumtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yahaba wakes up to darkness, and from now on, it is all he will ever see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Touch

**Author's Note:**

> title is from a quote by Mikhail Bulgakov.
> 
> This is a multichap fic to be done for various prompts from KyouHaba week.

There is not much difference when the doctors take off the bandages.

Shigeru opens his eyes, can feel his lids fold in on themselves. He brings his hands up to his eyes carefully to feel his lashes fan against his palms as he blinks.

He opens his eyes again and there is darkness. He puts his hands down but the darkness doesn’t go away.

-

 _Optic nerve damage._ the doctor said. Shigeru chokes on the words _I see_ and quickly covers it up with _I understand_. The nurse calls him lucky, says that the driver of the other car didn’t survive the accident. Shigeru is still trying to figure out if he agrees with that or not.

As soon as the doctor is finished, someone else rushes in. The whoosh of the door, too loud, makes Shigeru flinch, but not even a second later he’s enveloped in a tight embrace. A familiar smell hits him, and he relaxes immediately.

“Thank god, you’re okay.” Kentarou whispers, voice hoarse. “Thank god.”

Kentarou continues to babble, explanations and questions that he can’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears. Kentarou’s speaking faster than usual. Shigeru’s willing to bet his eyes are bloodshot, more sunken than usual, ringed with black from lack of sleep and not that eyeliner he puts on every morning. Kentarou pulls away and his hands are warm on his face but Shigeru doesn’t lean into it.

“Shigeru?”

He feels the fingers tense. Kentarou’s voice is shaking. Shigeru closes sightless eyes as Kentarou’s hands go cold.

-

Home suddenly doesn’t feel like home anymore. The room he’d spent years navigating with ease now seems laden with traps. He tries to picture what their apartment looks like, but continues to bruise his shins and knees and stub his toes on things he swears shouldn’t be there. He is too tired to be frustrated, doesn’t even have the energy to feel sorry for himself or be irrationally angry. Instead, he stumbles into bed without even changing out of his clothes, and hopes that, come tomorrow, all of this will just be some horrible dream.

-

He wakes up the next morning and it takes him a while to realize that the darkness is not because he woke up in the middle of the night. He feels around the bed and pats at nothing but soft sheets and pillows.

His first instinct is to call for Kentarou, then it shrinks back because Yahaba isn’t quite ready to admit this newfound vulnerability. He considers just sitting there until Kentarou comes back, realizes how pathetic that sounds and thinks about getting up. Then what? His stomach growls. Yes, the kitchen. Breakfast. From their bedroom, the kitchen is just a short walk away, but he sits up and doesn’t even remember where the bedroom door is. Suddenly, the kitchen is a million miles away. Unreachable.

In his mind is an abyss, and the longer he stares into it the worse his fingers shake, the heavier his limbs feel. Quickly, he reaches out his hands in front of him and gropes for anything to hold onto. He finds the bedside table and grips the edges tight as he stands from the bed. He follows the surface to get a palm flat on the wall and begins to walk, crosses two corners of the room before finally reaching the door.

He makes his way out into the hallway nervously, taking half-inch steps to make sure he doesn’t bump into anything...

“Shigeru?”

He jumps, backing up to press his whole body against the wall. His heart jackhammers in his chest like he’s just heard a gunshot. Someone ( _Kentarou, Kentarou_ ) takes his shoulders, whispering apologies.

Kentarou waits until he’s breathing normally. His thumbs rub circles around his arms. “What are you doing out of bed?” he asks. The air is thick with the citrus that Shigeru recognizes as Kentarou’s shampoo. He’d probably just taken a shower. He pictures what Kentarou must look like right now, brings up memories of all those times he steps out of the shower. All he gets is a faint wisp of the picture, a memory with an odd translucence to it.

Shigeru lifts a hand, waves it carefully around the area in front of his face. Lifts it a little higher. Kentarou makes a muffled surprised sound when his whole hand presses on his face.

“Um,” he starts, but Shigeru shushes him, brows furrowing in frustration as he waves Kentarou’s hands away. He finds his face again and reaches up with another hand. Kentarou makes a disgruntled noise when he squishes his cheeks but doesn’t move. Shigeru slides his index finger along the ridge of his brow bone, brushing along the sparse hairs of his eyebrow. His thumb traces the outline of plump but chapped lips. Kentarou gives his finger a little nip and he breathes a soft chuckle, smiles softly when Kentarou gently presses an apologetic kiss to it after. He follows the line of his jaw up to the back of his ear, then to his hairline, fingers lacing through soft, choppy hair.

He tries to reconcile the shapes he’s mapping out with his hands with the memories of Kentarou’s face. It’s difficult. He forgets faster than he remembers, and his hands fall away, defeated.

He doesn’t even feel the tears at first, and it takes an alarmed sound from Kentarou for him to acknowledge their existence, hot as they pour down his cheeks. Kentarou pulls him to his chest and murmurs soft words meant to be comforting, but they’re lost over his heaving sobs.

They eat breakfast in silence, and the afternoon is spent on the couch. Kentarou pulls him into his arms and tells him he loves him, says it over and over, then says he will never leave him. He says all this until Shigeru falls asleep to the lullaby of his promises.

-

The next day, Kentarou hands him a cane, teaches him to keep it close to the ground and at an angle from his body as he walks. Swing to the left when he brings his right foot forward, then the other way around. Kentarou stays as Shigeru fails again and again, patiently cleans up after when he swings his cane too hard and dislodges unseen things from unseen perches. 

The despair is tempting, very much so now that his ability to distract himself is limited, but he presses fingers onto tender bruises and recalls, years ago, the months of nothing but repeated failure, how he carried the legacy left behind by one of the greatest captains their school has ever known, and something surges within him. Something powerful, something unafraid.

Shigeru continues to explore, waves his cane and touches shapeless things and what was once an empty void starts to take form in his mind.

He keeps a hand on the wall, the rough plaster telling him that he’s in the living room. He learns to measure his steps, memorizes how many are needed to reach the end of the hall, how many from one room to another. The wall shifts from plaster to cold tile. Kitchen. He carefully reaches out for the cabinet above the counter that houses all their cutlery and slides the glass door aside: mugs on the second shelf, plates and bowls on the third, chopsticks in a rectangular niche at the bottom shelf. Beside the cabinet is a series of tins, labels embossed on the side: coffee, sugar, cream. After that, a rotating spice rack. He continues sliding his fingers along the marble countertop until he reaches the end of it. 

He brings a hand up to the wall again and continues on. 

(Behind him, unseen but always there, Kentarou smiles.)

-

“Shigeru!”

He tries to soften his breathing but his heart is thudding too loudly. He gulps and the sound rustles along his inner ears.

“Kentarou?”

“I’m here!” Kentarou answers, louder, from somewhere to his left. Shigeru turns. Carefully, he waves his cane left and right as he takes the five steps needed to get to the living room. He calls for Kentarou again.

“Here.” 

Close. He takes two steps, carefully, feeling his skin prickle with the sensation of someone’s eyes on him. He swings his cane and stops when it hits something. He knows every piece of furniture in the living room by now, knows that there shouldn’t be anything where his cane rests. His heart beats even louder now as he drops his cane, reaching out in front of him carefully. His palms land flat against wide shoulders wrapped in a thick, wool sweater and he lets out a victorious laugh as he leaps into Kentarou’s arms.

“Only three this time.” Kentarou says into his shoulder, muffled, but Shigeru hears the pride in his voice more than the actual words. “That’s a new high score. You sure you’re not cheating?”

Shigeru swipes his hand at the general area where Kentarou’s voice originated, and smiles when he hears a resounding smack and Kentarou’s indignant yelp.

They have dinner after, and he tries guessing through the bite-sized chunks that Kentarou feeds him. Chicken karaage, pickled plum, rice. Kentarou kisses him for every correct answer. Dessert is yogurt with fruit mixed into it and each juice-filled wedge is like a flower blooming on his tongue.

Kentarou gives him one last kiss after dinner, and the _I love you_ he says against his lips tastes like oranges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come cry about KyouHaba week with me (also, some of my contribs are art pieces so check em out @ [plumtreeforest.tumblr.com](http://plumtreeforest.tumblr.com)


	2. Team

Shigeru hears from his parents the weekend after he’s released. They’ve flown in from businesses abroad that they have left behind only when their son can no longer see them. He looks back and notes dryly that he does not even remember what his parents look like. In his mind, their faces are far too young, printed on paper and covered with glass and hung on walls of a house that always seemed far too empty.

He’s shaken out of his thoughts when the bristles of the brush scrape painfully against his gums. He spits in the sink and palms around for the spigot, twisting it open to let water run and wash down the foam. He hears Kentarou splash around the water to clean up the sink. He automatically angles his head and pulls his lips back when he feels Kentarou’s fingers on his chin, looking his teeth over for any dirt he may have missed.

“I feel like your child.” he says after Kentarou’s approving grunt, wiping his mouth with the towel slung around his neck.

“I’m used to it. You’ve been acting like a big baby since we were high school.”

His retort is interrupted when the doorbell rings. His shoulders hunch both from the suddenness of the sound and what it implies. Kentarou moves closer but doesn’t touch, his warmth permeating in the small space between them. “Do I at least have permission to intervene when things get ugly?”

He chews his lips, considering. “What would you do if I asked you to stay back?”

There is a thoughtful silence. “I’d say ‘You’re lying’.”

He grins and leans in fast to peck Kentarou, his kiss landing just at the cleft of Kentarou’s upper lip. Close enough. “And that’s why I love you.”

-

His parents make a fuss as they arrive, grabbing his face and saying too many things at once the second he opens the door. They’ve lived abroad for so long that he has to remind them to take their shoes off. He ignores their startled silence, as he makes his way to the living room.

His anxiety mounts as he answers their questions. He’s only ever heard their voices echoed from oceans away through choppy phone calls and laptop speakers, and he never realized how horribly grating his mother’s voice is until he heard it in person.

His parents promise to send him money, to settle the insurance and _Are you sure you don’t want to come live with us?_ and he nearly bites his tongue trying to keep down bitter words. Instead, he is polite, pleasant. He continues to be every bit of the boy they never raised. Ten minutes in, he’s starting to regret asking Kentarou to keep out of the conversation.

“Don’t you have a nurse?”

“Kentarou’s here,” he answers without hesitation, not at all minding his father”s warning growl, “and I can manage fine on my own as well.”

His mother gasps, horribly over-the-top. He has a hard time trying to figure out if she’s being sincere or purposefully mocking. “What are you saying, Shigeru? What if you need to eat?”

“Then I’ll go to the kitchen and get some food.” He snaps, and before a predictably inane question comes up, he hastily adds, “Earlier I knew that you walked three steps into my apartment with shoes on. And just in case you didn’t notice, I walked from the door to the living room without even using a cane. Just because I’m blind now doesn’t mean I’m completely incapable.”

A creak suddenly disrupts the mostly one-sided conversation. He recognizes the sound as the loose floorboard connecting the living room to the kitchen. He hears the tinkle or ceramic and smells the earthy aroma of green tea but as soon as the sofa dips beside him, he hears the opposite sofa groan with relief. His parents hastily say their goodbyes and promise to call later. Their steps are brisk and the door closes behind them with a rather telling slam.

Kentarou sighs deeply. Shigeru is glad he can no longer see his expression: the one he uses when he’s trying to pretend that he’s completely unfazed. He leans into Kentarou’s warmth, nuzzling when his arm comes up to wrap around his shoulders. “I’m glad you came when you did. I was about ready to commit murder.”

“ _That’d_ make an interesting headline.” he laughs, and the tightness in Shigeru’s chest unfurls at the sound. “So, safe to assume they still don’t like me, huh?”

“Well, I don’t like them either, so,” He shrugs and trails fingers around the coffee table until he finds one teacup. He loops a finger around the handle and supports it with his other hand as he lifts it close to his face. “You didn’t spit in this, did you?”

Shigeru laughs at his horrified silence.

“By the way,” Kentarou starts, after Shigeru’s taken a few sips of tea. “We’ll have visitors tomorrow. I figured after today, you might need some cheering up.”

His hand tightens imperceptibly around the cup but before he can turn to ask, Kentarou says. “It's a surprise.”

His shoulders slump. He’s not really sure how well he’ll handle visitors in his current state, no matter who they might be. Still, Kentarou’s done nothing but right by him so far. He sips at his tea and lets the liquid calm pass through him.

-

The mystery visitors arrive in the afternoon, just a little after he and Kentarou finish cleaning up from lunch. He tightens his hold on Kentarou’s hand as various feet shuffle around the living room. He tries to estimate how many there are, but he is too nervous to focus. They don’t talk. Someone sits next to him. He shifts closer to Kentarou.

“Hey.” Kentarou says and Shigeru wonders for a moment who he’s addressing, then suddenly Kentarou’s hand wraps around his wrist and brings it up, face-level to the person sitting next to him.

“Go on.” he prompts, and guides Shigeru’s palm against a soft, rounded cheek, then up to a bristly, shaved head.

“Hi Shigeru!” a cheerful, male voice greets him, and his heart rate picks up. He brings up his other hand to cup the person’s face. He traces carefully along rounded eyes, an angular face.

“Shinji?” he gasps, and a cheer erupts across the room. The corners of a grin slip beneath his thumbs and Shinji nods slightly, careful not to dislodge his hands.

“Wanna try and guess who else is here?” he asks and Shigeru lets go of his face, hears a rustling as socked feet cross the carpet of the living room counterpoint to the furious beats of his heart. Shinji lifts up off the couch and it sinks with a new weight. More confident this time, his hands reach up and feel along the too-short hair and the lips that were clearly struggling to keep from smiling.

“Hanamaki.” he greets, still not daring to believe it. Someone claps and makes awed sounds like a parent witnessing his child’s first steps. “You next! You next!” _Oikawa_ shouts to an unknown person. Shigeru only had to touch the top of his head before saying, “Hello, Matsukawa.”

Oikawa goes next, and, predictably, Iwaizumi follows. He barely even finishes Iwaizumi’s name before they pile on him, all cheerful voices and smiles pressing against his skin, and Shigeru drowns in the euphoria of it all, his happiness bubbling to the surface with choked laughs and tears of joy.

-

“That wasn’t even a challenge, you’re all way too easy to tell apart!” Shigeru laughs, after everyone has settled down. Beside him, Shinji traps him in a playful headlock. More pleasantries are exchanged, but nothing as forced or as faked as the ones he was forced to endure the other day. He never really realized how much he’s missed Matsukawa’s charming wit and Hanamaki’s sharp tongue. Iwaizumi’s motherly ways still haven’t dissipated one bit since high school and Shigeru mentally wishes his boyfriend luck as he is dragged away for a lesson on “blind-proofing” the house (Iwaizumi had justifiably freaked when he found out that neither of them had thought to throw out their glasses).

Oikawa asks for a demonstration of his independence, making amazed little sounds as they follow him around the apartment, watching as he succeeds in walking around without bumping into anything (excepting that time he bumped into Matsukawa when they were squeezed along the narrow hallways, but he got his bearings back fairly quickly).

He hears the patter of footfalls indicating Kentarou and Iwaizumi’s return from the kitchen. The smell of tea and coffee coalesce in the air and Shigeru’s nose tickles at the sweet, flowery notes of honey mixed in there somewhere. The smell is soon backed by the percussion of silverware and ceramic and the wet, hollow sound of liquid being poured.

“So, have you tried going outside yet, Yacchan?”

The clinking falls out of rhythm. He hears a slap of skin and a hushed _ow, Iwa-chan!_.

There is a weight in the atmosphere that slowly grows heavier the longer he stays silent. He feels multiple eyes on him and he resists the urge to fidget, tries to remember how long it’s been since he’d gone out. Not since the accident. He’d been so happy and content here that he’d forgotten that there was still a world out there, beyond the four walls of his and Kentarou’s sanctuary.

A world he is no longer a part of.

“No.” he says, and leaves it at that.

He picks up the muffled sounds of hesitation, hisses like half-formed apologies, but then Hanamaki, ever reliable, shatters the awkwardness with a heavy hand.

“So, I guess you guys don’t have any more use for that silk blindfold I found in your drawer that one time?”

Matsukawa’s loud, booming laugh echoes throughout the room. Someone coughs and sputters. Oikawa screeches until the sound reaches a pitch that only dogs can hear. Shigeru doesn’t even need to see to know that his face is beet red.

-

Later, after their seniors have their goodbyes and Iwaizumi had left Kentarou a hundred reminders and Oikawa had made Shigeru pinky promise _thrice_ to call if they needed anything, Kentarou busies himself with rearranging the things jostled in the visit while he and Shinji wash up used cups and spoons, with Shigeru wiping the dishes and placing them in their proper shelf.

“The cherry blossoms are gonna bloom soon.” Shinji says, as he hands him a bunch of teaspoons. “You know that the ones near Aoba Johsai have already started?”

It’s spring already? He hadn’t noticed. He wipes down the spoons one at a time and preempts the question. “No thanks.”

“But you love going outside! You used to be the one dragging me out all the time to go jogging and stuff!”

“Well that was before I suddenly found myself unable to even walk five steps without crashing into things.”

“You walked around your place without using your cane. You only even had to touch the wall a couple of times.”

The water runs, a soft, clear sound that tells Shigeru that Shinji’s stopped washing dishes and is staring at him, waiting for him to concede to his point. He sighs and slides a hand across the counter, over to the sink, twisting the lever once his fingers close around it. “It took me five days to navigate around this place properly, and just so I can continue to do that, everything has to be in the right place. You thought I was obsessively neat then, you should see me now.”

“Then why not try practicing that outside?”

“That’s different.”

“What, buildings and streetlights move around?”

“ _People_ move around.”

 _Among other things._ he thinks. He hears a rumbling sound like the growl of an angry beast, a demonic screech. He puts the last spoon down before it slips from shaking hands.

“So? When you’re walking around with your cane they’ll be able to tell you’re blind, they’ll move aside for you.”

He doesn’t reply. Shinji sighs and the water begins to run again, the splatters picking up an uneven rhythm when Shinji resumes his task. They work in silence for a while, until,

“Can I sleep over?”

Shigeru turns to him, eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Come on, when was the last time we built a pillow fort and slept on the floor, huh?”

He pauses, considers, then shrugs. “Do you even have things for a sleepover?”

“Lend me your clothes.” Shinji answers simply.

“Wow, way to order me around in my own house.”

“I’m a guest, aren’t you supposed to treat me like royalty?”

“You are also my best friend, hence, I treat you like shit.”

Shinji laughs, then bumps their shoulders together. “Aww, you _do_ love me!”

“Finish the dishes.” Shigeru laughs, pinching Shinji’s side. “You’re making the popcorn.”

-

Kentarou acquiesces with the impromptu sleepover and sets down futons for them in the living room (Shigeru had rejected his offer of sleeping on the couch so that he and Shinji could have the bedroom). Shinji initially suggested trying a movie first, but Shigeru should’ve figured that he wouldn’t find watching a movie as entertaining as it used to be. Most movies were hard to follow without the visual elements, and sometimes the actors had voices too similar for him to properly distinguish between characters. In the end, Shinji had turned off the movie after Shigeru’s third yawn in a row and instead they settle for talking. Something, he is ashamed to admit, they haven’t done in a fairly long time.

“What’s it like?” Shinji asks, voice hushed in deference to the fact that Kentarou is probably sleeping by now.

“It’s like my eyes are closed all the time. It’s dark.” He answers. He sinks onto the soft pillows to brace himself for his own question. “The scars. Are they bad?”

“Most of them are smaller than an inch, the largest is about half my middle finger. Here,” Shinji traces said scar, and he feels it, a vertical line beneath his eye, the one that blinded his right side forever. “Honestly, I didn’t even notice them earlier. The doctor did a good job stitching you up.”

Shigeru nods when Shinji retracts his finger. “Why won’t you go outside?”

His mind juggles between answers. He catches a lie. “I don’t want to.”

Goosebumps suddenly pop up in his arms. When he hears Shinji’s voice, it’s ice-cold. “Dude, if you’re gonna lie to me, at least be convincing about it.”

Shinji curls up slightly around his pillow in shame. Shinji sighs heavily. “Come on. Just try it. Usually the anticipation is the worst of it. Once you’re outside, you’ll realize the hikikomori life isn’t for you, you’ll see.”

It takes Shinji about a second to realize his wording. Then they simultaneously explode into laughter.

-

The next day, Kentarou picks his clothes for him as usual. He hears the squeak of hinges as Kentarou opens the cabinet doors, the click of hangers as they’re pushed around. Ten minutes later, he’s dressed in a long-sleeve and a jacket, a scarf wound tight around his neck.

He keeps one hand tight on Kentarou’s and another on his cane as they make their way down the staircase, Shinji following close behind. He loses count twice and just abandons the endeavor completely by the time they’re walking on flat ground. Shigeru feels the wind against his face for the first time in ages and the cold stings, but something warm sparks in his fingertips. He takes his first breath of fresh air and it is heavy and saturated with scent as it crawls up his nose. He smells damp earth and plants, the ozone of approaching rain, the clean and rejuvenating breeze of the countryside.

”Ready?” Shinji asks, voice thrumming with excitement. Shigeru hums softly and Kentarou hitches his hand on his elbow. Kentarou begins to walk and Shigeru begins to count.

It’s a weekday. He realizes that much after he hears the salarymen talking, frazzled and tired-sounding despite the early morning. He hears students, young voices anxiously chattering about which clubs to join, some talking with barely-contained excitement. Surprisingly, they get a wide berth, and Shigeru feels himself calm slightly.

Suddenly, a car whizzes by, sounding far too close for comfort and Shigeru freezes. All the numbers and directions in his head dissipate like mist and panic numb his limbs. Faint sounds from nightmares whisper like taunts in his ears.

“We’re nowhere near the road.” Kentarou reassures quickly, but Shigeru has a hard time believing it. He tucks himself further against Kentarou’s side but it doesn’t help. The chatter of faceless students suddenly seems too loud. To his left (right?) he hears a cat meowing. His heart hammers, blood pulses through him and throbs against his ears. Somewhere he hears the thunder of footsteps growing louder, growing closer. Something collides against his shoulder and he gasps more from surprise than pain. His cane falls from his hands and lands somewhere with a dull _clack_. Courage abandons him.

There is another thud and Shinji grunts. Kentarou growls and shifts and Shigeru’s hand slips from the crook of his arm. _No!_ he wants to scream, but he doesn’t even know if anything comes out. _Watch where you’re going!_ Kentarou yells, but his voice is everywhere at once. Shigeru can’t find him. Kentarou’s gone.

His whole world crumbles. The noises are overwhelming. He wants to tuck himself into a corner but he’s too afraid to move, doesn’t even know where he is. He falls to his knees and curls into himself, pressing his hands tight against his ears but he can still hear it.

_The roar of an engine. The high screech of tires against asphalt. The shattering of glass that sounds like a million tiny little bells._

“Shigeru.” Someone is pulling him up from the ground, pressing him tight against a broad chest. “Shigeru!”

He whines as he paws at the person’s arms, fingers trembling too much to get a good grip. Barely, he hears _I’m sorry_ mixed with _It’s okay, we’re here, you’re okay_. The person pulls him up near effortlessly and embraces him, but he feels more caged than safe.

Shigeru continues to shake his head, and the person continues to hold him.

_There is an explosion of shards, and his eyes feel like they’re **burning**._

Shigeru screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're wondering why some characters are referred to using their last names and some using first names: since I'm writing this in Yahaba's POV the narration will refer to them as how I feel he'd refer to the characters by the time this story takes place (aka: he still refers to his seniors by their last names, without suffixes, and refers to Watari and Kyoutani by their first names, hence the narration follows this pattern)
> 
> also: yes I know I'm late I mean the story is technically _done_ but I got unsatisfied with the flow of the unposted parts and edited like crazy and my bro's birthday is tomorrow so I'll be behind schedule for these last few days


	3. Future

He comes to slowly, like he’s waking from a long and terrible nightmare. He takes in the smell of the sheets he is lying on and he knows that he’s home. He stands and walks around the space, touching the shapes and places that never change, that never move, feeling around for the familiarity of it all. At least, here, he is safe.

He doesn’t talk to Kentarou at all for the rest of the day, but he hovers just enough for Shigeru to feel the weight in the air when a person is close. That night, he does not sleep. Sometimes a flash of the memory hits him like a physical blow and his breath hitches, fingers clench around his pillow as his body quivers.

He gasps when an arm settles around his waist and pulls him back against a broad chest.

“You’re okay.” Kentarou whispers, reassures, nuzzling the nape of his neck. The line of tension in Shigeru’s body continues to hold.

“Am I?” he asks, and his voice breaks. He’s so, _so_ tired of crying, and yet here he goes again, tears streaming from empty sockets.

A kiss is placed on the knob of bone between his shaking shoulders. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be there. It doesn’t matter if it takes months—” 

Shigeru shakes his head, attempts to writhe out of Kentarou’s grasp but he refuses to let go. “I can’t do that to you.” Kentarou’s already done far too much, more than he deserves. “Tomorrow.” he keens, between hiccups. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

“Don’t force yourself.” Kentarou chides gently, holding him tighter. He responds with more sobs that he fails to silence, and falls asleep to the feel of Kentarou’s lips on his neck, his hands rubbing soothing circles onto his sides.

Tomorrow, he has no energy to get out of bed, doesn’t even have the energy to speak. Kentarou stays with him, only getting up to bring him food that he eats just because Kentarou’s feeding him. The unfulfilled promise flits in and out of his conscious mind and adds another wave of guilt that weighs him down even further. 

Kentarou makes no mention of it, and continues to spend more of himself to care for him. 

-

“Shouldn’t you go to work?”

He didn’t mean for the question to come out so demanding, but Kentarou does not pause as he massages the shampoo into his hair. “My brothers are handling things fine even without me. Don’t worry about it.” he responds easily and rinses out the lather from Shigeru’s hair, a hand on his forehead to shield his face, even though the act is completely unnecessary. Shigeru runs his own hands through his hair to offer some semblance of help but his leaden fingers can’t even smooth out the tangles they find. Kentarou gently rescues his trapped fingers and kisses them, taking over with firm but painless sweeps.

“I’m taking too long.” he says when the shower turns off. The words echo against the walls, like they too, are condemning him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid. That was the first time you went out.” Kentarou explains, and his voice is as patient as the fingers that eased out the knots in his hair. “You didn’t even know you had a trigger.”

The mere mention of it is enough to get his hands shaking again. He clenches them around the towel Kentarou drapes around his shoulders.

“I’m scared.” he whispers and the shame that bears down on him with that admission bends him at the waist. Kentarou’s hands gently cup his jaw and angles his face up.

“Before, you were scared too,” he says, voice soft, “but you could always keep your cool. Why?”

He’s not using specific words, but a conjured memory plays like a slideshow in Shigeru’s mind. Snippets of the fever-pitch cheering of a crowd, the boom of a leather ball colliding with hardwood floors, the burn in his thighs as he jumps when he thought he couldn’t jump anymore. He exerts effort to remember, recalls the moment, the memory of the moment, and the tips of his fingers throb.

“I was calm because I knew that I wasn’t alone.”

Kentarou moves closer, until the air is saturated with his scent, until he can feel Kentarou’s lashes on his cheekbones. He doesn’t let go of Shigeru. “Are you alone now?”

Shigeru breathes deep. “No.”

That night, he promises _tomorrow_ like he’s been promising for the past five nights. Kentarou says nothing, but his lips press against his forehead. Shigeru picks up the shattered remnants of his courage and holds the pieces tight against his chest.

Tomorrow, he reaches for the edges of the bedside table and pulls himself up.

-

 _Calm down_ he tells himself, exhausts every possible variation of the command just in case any one of them will get his body to obey. His steps are still shaky. The sound of any approaching vehicle is enough to cause the imaginary twine he’d unraveled behind him to slip out of his grasp.

“You’re doing fine.” Kentarou says, and his voice does what Shigeru’s mind couldn’t. His breathing steadies. Everything else falls silent. “Where are we?”

He takes a moment to even out his breathing, to concentrate on Kentarou’s presence behind him, to consider the surroundings. There is a _whoosh_ of automatic doors and an artificial warmth hits him from the front. He hears the beats of a song and the distinctive beep of a cash register and the jingle of coins. It’s still not specific enough.

“I don’t know.” He admits. Ignorance, but not defeat. He reaches out for a sign and his knuckles bump against something. A shelf. He palms the contents and he is greeted by the crackle of plastic wrappers. He squeezes gently and the inside is soft and pillowy. Bread?

“A convenience store?”

“Yes.”

Shigeru bites his lip, struggles to remember their displacement. Twenty steps south, then a left turn, eighteen steps to get here. His mind works to put two and two together, drags up memories of daily jogs and the places he used to pass…

“Lawson.” he answers. “The one where you’d stop to buy chicken after our morning jogs.”

Beside him, Kentarou’s breath stutters. Shigeru thinks he hears a sob. “Yes, yes, that’s the one.” Kentarou answers, and when Shigeru reaches for his face, Kentarou rushes in for a kiss.

-

Three weeks later, a hand slides along the wall, memorizing the whorls and cracks along the stucco as its owner makes his way through the block. He waves his cane with a practiced sweep and continues on when he finds no obstacles. He hears the tinkling of a chime in tandem with the groan of a door. The smell of vanilla and old, musty flowers suddenly crawl into his nostrils. A memory comes up alongside the sensation: an autumn afternoon, the heft of Kentarou’s gloved hand in his, an old lady waving at him from behind grungy windows.

“We’re outside that antique bookstore.” he says. Kentarou doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need him to. He counts fifteen steps before the walls disappear beneath his fingers. He taps around with his cane, stops just shy of the edge of the curb, crosses only when Kentarou lays his palm flat against the small of his back. Everywhere, he hears people, the low murmur of engines, but above all that he feels Kentarou’s hand on his waist, can smell citrus in the air. He knows he is safe.

He stops at the other end, turn his head to the right, where muffled voices echo from inside a shop. He recognizes the commentary for a local baseball game originating from several speakers. The secondhand appliance store. He counts thirty steps from there. Makes a right. The scrape of pavement gives way to the crunch of pebbles. He swings his cane until he finds the stairwell and climbs. Twelve steps to each floor, thirty-six to get to the third floor. Fifth door down the hall.

He reaches into his pocket for their apartment key and slowly guides it into the slot. It scrapes against the edges for a bit before succeeding and he turns the key. The latch clicks. The cylinder spins. The door opens with a creak of unoiled hinges. He steps inside and it smells like home.

Not even a second later, arms scoop him up. Kentarou’s laughter is contagious and he finds himself joining in his glee, _You did it. I’m so proud of you._ he keeps saying, filling Shigeru with excitement until he’s giddy with it.

-

Shigeru’s dream ends with the dying notes of laughter and butterflies dancing on his shoulders, prickly antenna and silk-soft wings. He wakes to a weight on his chest, and sluggishly, he reaches up until he finds Kentarou. He smiles, wistful, as his thumb catches along stubble and plush lips.

“If there’s one thing I miss most, it’s seeing your handsome face in the morning.”

Kentarou scoffs, the rush of morning breath on his face making Shigeru wrinkle his nose. “God, stop getting all nostalgic on me.” Kentarou says, and his head dips down to continue laying kisses on Shigeru’s shoulders, “And is ‘handsome face’ what we’re calling it now? What happened to ‘ugly mug’?”

Shigeru laughs and flicks Kyoutani’s ear. “You know I never meant that.”

He grunts, biting Shigeru’s exploring thumb in retaliation. “Look on the bright side. At least you won’t fall out of love with me just because I grew up old and ugly.”

Shigeru’s brows draw tight. He puts his palms flat on the sides of Kentarou’s face to hold him still, and traces his features with his fingers. What is once firm skin stretched tight over a wide jaw now sags slightly, excess hanging beneath his chin. He brushes over the grooves of his wrinkles, the faint ridges along a wide forehead, the hair that’s thinner than he remembers, and smiles.

“What are you saying?” he laughs as he pulls Kentarou down for a kiss on the nose. “You’re as gorgeous as the day we met.”

“Are you setting me up for a ‘love is blind’ joke?”

Shigeru laughs and pinches his cheeks hard. Kentarou groans and he kisses him again on the nose, feeling it scrunch beneath his lips.

“Go shower.” he instructs, shooing Kentarou away with a wave of his hand. “I’ll make breakfast.”

He maneuvers around the kitchen with the ease of routine. The coffee machine beeps and he pours out coffee for Kentarou, keeping a finger an inch from the rim of his mug so he knows when to stop pouring. The waffle iron clicks and the automatic latch releases, filling the room with the smell of freshly-cooked pastry. Carefully, he stacks it on a plate along with three others, and turns to deposit it smoothly on the table.

Kentarou steps into the kitchen, the loose floorboard that they never replaced tipping Shigeru off to his presence. He greets him with an open-mouthed kiss, more enthusiastic now that Kentarou had brushed his teeth. He slips from his arms to help with breakfast, and seconds later Shigeru hears the hiss and crackle of the frying pan. His nose twitches happily at the smell of cooking bacon.

Shigeru takes his place on the table, cutting into his waffle and gently lifting the piece towards his mouth, the buttery notes wafting into his nose to join the myriad of scents from their breakfast table: bacon, coffee and cloying maple syrup that Kentarou always insists on having with his waffles. Their meal is serenaded by the symphony of tablewares and the rough timbre of Kentarou’s voice as he reads him the morning news. Warmth filters through their window and Shigeru cranes his head towards it, letting the morning sun caress his face.

Outside, a car’s engine rumbles to life, but Shigeru doesn’t pay it any mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay I knoooow this was a week late but an alternate version of the ending bit me in the ass and I was like heeey
> 
> love me, hate me @ [plumtreeforest.tumblr.com](http://plumtreeforest.tumblr.com)


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